George Beck, U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Alabama, recently asked Governor Robert Bentley and state Attorney General Luther Strange about their positions on electronic bingo games being played in the state. Both said court rulings indicate the games are illegal in Alabama. “I have received responses to my letters from both the attorney general and the governor, and I’ve read the recent state Supreme Court decision, and I think it’s clear that the state’s position on this is that these are slot machines and illegal. That seems settled,” Beck said. Victoryland’s electronic bingo machines and 0,000 in cash were confiscated by the state in 2013. A state court ruled the state must return the machines and money, but last month the Alabama Supreme Court overruled that decision.
Now Beck stated he will ask the National Indian Gaming Commission where it stands on the games. “I would like to know what the NIGC’s position on these games are in this state, whether they are slot machines or something else, and why they are allowed to be played in Alabama. There is some question in the statute about what is allowable under the law and what those games are classified as, slots or Class II gaming,” Beck said.
Beck said many citizens don’t understand why VictoryLand Casino in Macon County and others have been the target of raids and legal battles over electronic bingo games, while the Poarch Band of Creek Indians offer the same machines at their three Alabama casinos. One reason is that under federal law, Indian lands are not subject to state regulations, but must abide by federal regulations created by Congress in 1988 under the Indian Gaming and Regulatory Act. Also, although the games at Indian and non-Indian casinos look the same, their internal functions are different, so the NIGC declared the Poarch Creek’s games to be bingo, not slots which are illegal in Alabama. “There are statutes that seem to say if it is illegal in the state, it has to be illegal on the tribal lands,” Beck said.
Beck added, despite rumors, he’s not pursuing this action to raise campaign contributions. “My motivation is strictly to ascertain what the law is so I can eliminate the confusion. That is all there is. I have no ulterior motives. At the end of this, it could be a dead end. And honestly, I could care less about the outcome,” he said.
In his letter to Beck, Bentley reaffirmed his action last year of giving local sheriffs and district attorneys gambling oversight, removing it from the attorney general’s office. Beck also asked Strange about three Memorandums of Understanding allowing the electronic gaming machine distributors to remove from closed casinos the gaming machines that the attorney general’s office possessed at the time, due to raids. In return, the distributors agreed to not return the machines to those casinos in violation of Alabama law. Beck questioned the legality of the arrangement, since the distributors are supplying an illegal product, and the MOUs, which exempt the Poarch Creek casinos , are a de facto compact between the state and tribe. Strange said the agreements were not compacts, and required a company to remove the illegal games from the state. Beck commented, “I’ll just say that I remain puzzled by those responses.”
Beck is not the only on puzzled by VictoryLand’s situation. Josh Moon, an investigative reporter and columnist at the Montgomery Advertiser, recently wrote, “I’ll leave it up to you to determine why the state’s highest court has obviously ignored the law and basic common sense. I’ll stick to my original statement: There is no rational explanation for electronic bingo being illegal in Macon County, and no good reason for VictoryLand, the county’s largest employer, remaining closed.”
And the editorial board of the Dothan Eagle wrote, “Are electronic bingo games legal, or illegal? There have been several contradictory court rulings, a blueprint from the Alabama Supreme Court, raids, seizures, and crippling of businesses operating electronic bingo machines. In more than six years, the state of Alabama has spent millions chasing after electronic bingo operators, disrupting business and eliminating jobs, but has yet to charge a single person with operating an illegal gambling operation. Even the federal prosecutor is confused by the mission.”
